Pick any descriptor you want: Problem from hell, epidemic, plague. They're all accurate. And now the latest victim of Chicago's raging gun violence problem turns out to be a teen who just last a year ago spoke out against it.

Last February, 13-year-old Zarriel Trotter appeared in a video about violence in Chicago created by the advocacy group Black Is Human. "I don't want to live around my community, where I've got to keep on hearing [about] people getting shot, people getting killed," he said.

The accidental shooting of Trotter—the Tribune reports he did not appear to be the intended target—is indicative of a new surge in gun violence in 2016. The New York Times reports that 131 people had been killed here in the first months of this year, an 84%-increase in homicides from the same period in 2015. And there have been 605 shootings in total, nearly twice as many as at this point last year. So far this year, the city is averaging more than seven shootings and one homicide per day, according to the Washington Post.

The Times explores various reasons for the increase—unseasonably warm weather, an alleged "Ferguson effect" of reluctant policing over fears of appearing on a viral video, recent administrative changes—without finding great evidence for any one. Indeed, one expert cautions theTimes against making too much of the new numbers.

Advertisement

“Trying to read too much into this is a grave mistake,” Craig B. Futterman, a clinical professor of law at the University of Chicago, told the paper. “We’re all just guessing.”